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Abstract
Volcanic rocks in central Victoria play a key role in unravelling magmatic relationships within an extensive zone of Late Mesozoic to Quaternary volcanism in southeastern Australia. In this study, new bulk-rock major, trace-element and Sr, Nd, Hf and Pb isotope data are presented for 20 samples of Late Cenozoic mafic volcanics from the central Victorian region. Mineral chemistry and bulk-rock analyses confirm that all samples can be treated as liquid compositions and that some were probably primary magmas. On the basis of incompatible trace-element and isotope ratios, processes such as magma mixing and crustal assimilation can be largely ruled out, and significant mantle-source heterogeneity beneath the area is proposed. If this heterogeneity extends to other regions of the post-10 Ma Victorian volcanics, the influence of the Mortlake Discontinuity and level of involvement from the lithospheric mantle in the genesis of these rocks, may need to be re-evaluated. Finally, it is argued that there is no clear evidence to suggest the New South Wales leucitite suite extends into Victoria; rather the Cosgrove leucitite flow represents part of the post-10 Ma Victorian volcanics.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
We would like to thank I. A. Nicholls for providing unpublished Older Volcanics data for the purpose of comparison in . We are most grateful to have received thorough reviews from Richard Price and Lin Sutherland and marked improvements in the manuscript reflect their helpful advice. This work was conducted as a BSc (Hons) project at the University of Melbourne, with all field and analytical costs met by our research group. The location for the work was selected as part of a collaboration between the authors and Neil Phillips, to whom we are also most grateful.